Velociworld

FORM FOLLOWS FUNK

or something like that. An inocuous reference in one blog will inevitably lead me in an entirely different direction, I've found. The Fontainebleau reference triggered what will be my New Project. A book. Not a novel. No one would pay their unearned civil service euros to read the self-serving tripe I'd put in a novel. No, a coffee table book. A big freaking pictorial with background on the great post-war development of resort cities. Specifically, the luxury hotels that fueled the phenomenon of the middle class luxury vacation, after daddy beat the evil Huns and Nips.

I stayed in the Fontainbleau a few years ago, and I have to tell you: it's still cool, with its curving sweep, with all rooms facing the ocean, the lush jungle underneath, the pool, the room service. It's not South Beach, it's Miami Beach. And I can wear a Waikiki shirt and sandals there and get in touch with a completely different vibe than South Beach, where I'm so exhausted from sucking in my gut and pretending to be an overweight Paraguayan that I can't really enjoy the scene.

I've always been fascinated by the development (some would say despoiling) of the resort cities after World War II: Miami, of course, and Honolulu; Rio de Janiero and Acupulco. To a lesser degree Papeete, Nassau, and Bridgetown. These were great resorts before the war for many years, of course, but Conrad Hilton and his ilk started the trend of the attainable vacation, I believe, and from 1946 to 1958 or so the classic post-war leisure artifices were erected for our enjoyment. And any schmoe could scrimp and save and pack up the family for a dream vacation in Eden. The Ugly American? You betcha. In spades. But I truly believe the flow of United States greenbacks into these cities did a hell of a lot more good than bad, and does to this day.

I'm still fleshing this out. There's so much I don't know. Hell, I'm not THAT old.

What I DO know is some gullible Conde Nast or Sky Magazine git just might fund my research. I'll spring for the photography myself. I consider that quite a deal.